Pilgrims | by Andrea Avery
Work | by Aaron Belz
Music Man | by Daniel Durchholz
St. Pete's | by Franklin Jennings
Left Bank | by Brandyn Jones
The Training Ground | Tony Renner
Shoe Jail | by Stefene Russell
Work is a Four Letter Word | by Brett Underwood
Shoe Factory | by Andrea Avery
All Eyes: The Mansion Hotel | by Thomas Crone
Why We Never Leave South City | by Julie Dill
The Man Who Ran Corn for Mister Otha Turner | by Chris King
How I Became a Zackaroo | by Brian H. Marston
On Being Mr. Bibbs | by Michaela McGinn
Six Things About Barges You May Not Know | by Butler Miller
Businesses and Buildings | by Dana Smith
When The Honest World Has Passed Away | by Stefene Russell
My Road | by Tom Weber
Work | by Aaron Belz
Yes, I have taken to plucking the white hairs
from my chest, a meaningless if exhilarating task:
each small fire point a reminder of work
left undone while plucking white hairs.
I find myself uninterested in these hairs falling
one by one into the clear toilet water.
Yes, I was plucking them before taking a shower;
I suppose you might say I was "stalling."
After the shower I had planned to work
on a number of meaningful if boring tasks:
reattaching the weatherstripping to the frame
of the back door, marinating a pile of shark
meat to throw on the grill this evening,
weeding and leveling the horseshoe beds
in preparation for another crazy spring party,
shaking up the wine, staining the porch swing.
Well, shaking the wine would have been fun.
Do you ever do that--to eliminate the dregs?
Yes, I have taken to shaking it quite hard
while standing on my patio, out in the sun.
Aaron Belz, professor at SLU and organizer of Readings @ The Tap Room, loves poetry almost as much as he loves his wife Becca, three kids, and home at Hartford & Spring. His new book, Plausible Worlds, is available at Dunaway, Left Bank, Subterranean and though the Observable Books website. He writes, "Please at least leaf through a copy even if you don't end up buying it."